Julie Rrap. Body double

Sydney : Museum of Contemporary Art / Piper Press, 2007. Quarto, cloth in illustrated dustjacket, pp. 168, illustrated. New copy.

‘Since the 1980s Julie Rrap has sought to ‘disclose’ the human body, and unravel the ways in which it has been represented in art and elsewhere For the most part, Rrap has used her own body in photographs, videos and sculptures. This has not simply been a documentation of the female form. This is a performing body ‘ one that enacts various postures through shadow play, masquerade, mirror and mime. Rrap’s works go to the heart of photography ‘ they occupy the zone between the documentation of reality and the artifice of invention. Rrap’s representation of the body is never comfortable. Her human figures are often dissected into parts, distorted, and at times squeezed into the stance of the artist’s muse. In her sculptures, the body disappears altogether, as if it has slipped into the negative spaces of solid forms that beg to cradle flesh once again.  Julie Rrap is a leading Australian artist depicting the female form through her own body. Rrap combines an intellectual framework with a sense of wit and works in sculpture, installation, photography and video in consistently compelling ways.  Author Victoria Lynn explores Rrap’s role as ‘the trickster’ in her work, how she uses the ‘body double’, and how she oversteps the limits of bodily representation.’ – the publisher